


The Coffee Is... Not Disgusting

by FiaMac



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Abduction, Aliens, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiaMac/pseuds/FiaMac
Summary: Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re in a freaking space ship, Julie, and you’re really going to talk shit about the hospitality? Because, granted, when the UFO sucked me up from a parking lot, I envisioned sterile rooms and questionable probing. I certainly didn’t expect to be offered a hot beverage—and my mother always taught me not to bitch when you’re eating someone else’s food—but just…you’d think all this advanced technology would lend itself to better coffee, you know?





	The Coffee Is... Not Disgusting

**Author's Note:**

> I was recently reminded of this short story I wrote for HitRecord, decided to post it here for amusement. Cheers.

The coffee is crap.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering. I mean, you wouldn’t go to a post office and expect to get your hands on a perfectly made turkey sandwich, now would you? So it makes sense that a flying saucer isn’t going to serve up a decent cup o’ joe.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  _You’re in a freaking space ship, Julie, and you’re really going to talk shit about the hospitality?_  Because, granted, when the UFO sucked me up from a parking lot, I envisioned sterile rooms and questionable probing. I certainly didn’t expect to be offered a hot beverage—and my mother always taught me not to bitch when you’re eating someone else’s food—but just…you’d think all this advanced technology would lend itself to better coffee, you know?

God, I could really go for a turkey sandwich, right now.

Don’t get me wrong. These alien dudes have been all kinds of cool, especially the shorter one that brought me the coffee. He’s a pudgy little thing, with a flat nose and a perplexed expression. I’ve taken to calling him Horace. He said his name is something like Horathilumsomethin, but he looks more like a Horace.

Horace wiggles all six fingers at my cup, likely encouraging me to drink more of its vile brew, so I gamely take another swig—I’m the very picture of interspecies diplomancy—but can’t keep the grimace off my face.

“Your beverage is disgusting?” Horace asks.

Shit. Doesn’t it figure I’d accidentally start an interplanetary crisis over medium roast. Mother will never let me hear the end of it. “Oh, no. No. It’s, ah…swell.”

Horace exchanges looks with his buddy, a slightly taller and oddly freckled alien I’ve decided to name Ferdinand. I once had a turtle named Ferdinand. He had freckles, too.

“Then...it is delicious?” Ferdinand chirps, holding up the carafe as if I weren’t still fidgeting with a full cup.

“Weeelll,” I prevaricate, “I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

“Neh...it is not delicious, but…not disgusting. This is correct?” Horace’s face kind of folds in on itself in confusion, and I sort of feel bad about giving the little dude a hard time.

“Er, right. Totally.” I put the cup down on the table in an effort to separate it from my immediate existence. “You know what, it’s an Earth thing. Not important to, like, interstellar wellbeing or whatever. Don’t worry about it.”

“Neh.” A sound I’m coming to recognize as generalized confusion. Rather like alien-speak for  _WTF_ , I’m guessing. Horace and Ferdinand have been bleating it at me since they brought me on board. I don’t think this interview is going the way they expected. Gotta say, I know the feeling.

“So…” I redirect—because, you know, I do have plans for the day. Not great plans, or anything, but I’m not going to make it through another day without buying more cat food, and the all-natural pet store closes at six, and Gingernut will only touch the frou-frou stuff, damned cat—to the matter at hand. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Horace looks at Ferdinand again, who gives a little shrug. Guess some forms of communication are universal. "We aspire for you to inform us about human nature.”

I blink at them. Again. Once more. I’m not liking the sound of this. “Oh. Wow. Um…you want me to explain human nature to you? Like,  _all_  of it?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, no, cool. It’s just, well…” Shit, like I’m Nietzsche or something? But I can’t give them nothing, or they might decide to just probe me after all. “You know, that’s kind of a big topic, and, you know, I kind of have some stuff I need to do later.”

Horace does the face-foldy thing again. Shit.

“Could you, like, maybe narrow it down for me a little?”

“Narrow down?” They both ask, heads tilted like flat-faced puppies.

“Yeah, you know…what’s the one thing you’d like me to explain?”

They huddle up for a minute, whispering to themselves. I don’t know why they bother—I don’t speak alien. But I let them have their moment, and eventually they turn back to face me.

“We selected our inquiry,” Horace announces.

“Okay, shoot.”

“Sh—”

“I mean,” I cut in, waving my hand, “go ahead and ask. What do you want to know?”

“Pickles.”

“Er…huh?” I ask, feeling my face fold in on itself.

“Pickles.”

“As in, what are they?”

“Why do you have them?” Horace clarifies, wiggling his fingers.

“Why do I have pickles?”

“Humans,” he says. “Earth beings. Why do they have pickles?”

“Oh. Right,” I hedge. Why  _do_  we have pickles? I don’t think that ever got covered in school. Or maybe I missed that day.

“Um. Well. Some people like them, I guess.”

“They are delicious?” Ferdinand again. This guy…really.

“Well, actually, I kind of think they’re disgusting. But, sure…some people think they’re delicious.”

“Delicious… _and_  disgusting?”

This time, I’m the one who shrugs. “It’s a thing.”

“Neh.”

Yep, I’m totally getting probed.


End file.
